Lately Thorn had been spending a lot of time looking at the drawings, trying to figure out how in so few strokes she could give the common images of island life such an uncommon glow. A year earlier he would've said such a thing was impossible. He had lived on Key Largo all his life, but apparently there was much he hadn't noticed. Much he'd failed to fully appreciate.
Monica's head was bowed. She was intent on her magazine—one of those weekly rags she had a weakness for. It was filled with photographs of people—the latest crop of Hollywood brats out on the town, mugging for the paparazzi, and there were always photographs of a few normal folks who'd done some abnormal thing. He found himself staring across at her for several moments, entranced by the cowlick at the back of her head, a corkscrew of untamable hair. He'd had other lovers with far more common ground. There was the woman he'd known since childhood who could outfish him, outdrink him, outsmart him at everything that mattered. But Darcy Richards was years dead now and Thorn knew better than to search for her double.
Monica's nature was harder to define. An artist who could take apart a complicated object and put it back together greatly simplified. Whose drawings weren't so much detailed renderings as they were the object itself stripped of irrelevancies.
Thorn had watched her on several afternoons as she explored his weedy five acres beside Blackwater Sound with her sketch pad in hand. She had the quiet intensity, the resolute focus of a naturalist making field notes in a newly discovered corner of the jungle. He'd seen her squatting in the grass, staring at the flaky bark of a gumbo-limbo, rapt, as if she were taking the tree's deepest pulse. Last week she'd picked up a dead butterfly off the planks of the dock and held it up to the sky, tilted it, rotated it until Thorn saw the microscopic whorls of felt on its wings, the odd hieroglyphs that had been invisible before. Then she rubbed her finger against the burgundy down and sent a weird snow into the air. Monica Sampson surprised him, scared him a little, kept him off balance. He hadn't felt so alert, so invigorated in years.
As she turned the page of her magazine, he sensed the words rising up from his diaphragm, the place where they said great opera singers and orators find their richest tones. The words had been hovering inside him for the last month, so, even though he'd made no conscious decision to speak them at this moment, it could hardly be considered blurting.
"Would you marry me?"
She hesitated a second or two, then brought her face up slowly, peering at him for several more uneasy heartbeats. Then she broke into a deep-throated laugh that sent two doves roosted outside the west window exploding into flight.
"Jesus," Thorn said. "Thanks a lot."
She raised a palm while she struggled for breath.
"It's not some goddamn joke. I'm dead serious. I want to marry you."
She flicked her eyes up to his, then back down. She sighed, then carefully she set her magazine on the coffee table, stared at its cover for a moment as if to clear her head. There were red flecks in the sunlight streaming through the window. A butterfly battled at the screen. With a hand pressed against her chest, she lifted her eyes and met his. The smile was gone. But he didn't much like what had replaced it.
"I'd get down on my knees," he said, "but my back is too sore. I don't think I could get up."
She looked over at Rover curled in the corner by the rack that held Thorn's fishing rods. She shook her head and waved her hand at the room.
"You and me, Rover, a regular glass of wine, this isn't enough for you? You're unhappy the way we are?"
"I'm very happy," Thorn said. "That's the point."
"Thorn, Thorn, Thorn. For godsakes, you don't even have a social security card, a driver's license, and all of a sudden you want to get on a first-name basis with the state of Florida? You got to have some legal stamp on this."
"I want to marry you. I want you to live here with me, for us to have something stable. I'm not the kind of guy who goes from one woman to the next all his life. That's not who I am."
"But that's who you've been."
Her skin shone like translucent porcelain with a rosy light inside.
"Yeah, well, I don't want to be that guy anymore. I want to get married."
"Oh, so some alarm went off inside you, now you've decided you've got to get married and Monica Sampson happened to be walking by at the time. Well, lucky me."
"Come on. It's not that way. I'm serious."
"You're serious." She looked into his eyes, then took a breath and shifted her gaze out the side window where a palm frond was feathering against the screen in the lightest of breezes.
"Yeah," he said. "Damn serious."
"Okay, all right. Then I'll think about it." There was a sharp distance in her voice, as if she'd been half-expecting such an outrage from him and was torn between relief and disappointment that it had finally happened.
"It's because of the age thing, isn't it? That's the problem. You think, twenty years from now you'll still be young, I'll be hobbling around, I can't remember where I put my false teeth. That's what's bothering you."
"No."
"Well, it shouldn't. Because I'm going to be a tough old coot. It's a Key Largo thing. We eat so much fish, breathe all this clean air, it takes years off the clock. Believe me, you see it all the time around the island, guys in their eighties, eyes as bright as any twenty-year-old."
She was staring across the room at Rover. He'd lifted his head from his mat and was giving them a wary look, as if he heard a resonance in their voices that signaled some approaching upheaval.
"Look, Thorn. That's the best I can do at the moment. I'll think about it, okay? I'll think about it and we'll talk again later."
"Okay, that's fine. I'll take that. Not-a-no is fine. No pressure. No hurry, none of that."
"Yeah, right," she said, forcing out a smile. "No pressure. None at all."
He came around the coffee table, bent down, and with a hand against her cheek, he kissed her on the lips. It took a moment or two, but finally she relaxed and the kiss ripened and she rose to her feet and fit into his arms. When the kiss was done, still in the embrace, she rested her head on his shoulder. She made a fist and beat it softly against his back between his shoulder blades. Damn you, damn you.
"There's rice on the stove," she said.
"Let it cook."
The saxophones were mingling with guitars, the woman's rich contralto flushed the air.
"The coals will go out."
"Let's damn well hope so."
As they began to move toward the bedroom, Rover released a long sigh and let his head drop back to the mat.
***
Thorn and Monica had discovered that particular position a month or two earlier, no Kama Sutra contortion, just a pleasant arrangement, he on his back, pillow under his hips, she astride, knees bent under her so she could control the pressure, the angle, the timing. Ride 'em, cowgirl.
The music played in the living room, the woman's lush voice rising like an excited pulse. Before Monica, Thorn had never played music while making love. He preferred the natural accompaniment of jays and ospreys, the boat traffic across Blackwater Sound, or just human grunts and moans to guide the rhythm—not some Motown metronome. But what the hell. Monica was twenty years younger, from a more musically dependent generation. And Thorn was willing to learn.
Lately, he'd been learning a hell of a lot from this young woman, feeling himself loosen out of his strict habits. Almost from day one she'd made fun of him—his narrow focus, his rigid ceremonies. Every day was the same for Thorn. Up at sunrise, tying bonefish flies all morning, bright iridescent morsels he sold for a few dollars a pop. Then later in the afternoon he took his skiff out to test his latest creations along the shallows at the mouth of Snake Creek or deep in the backcountry. By sunset he was usually grilling whatever edible catch he'd snagged. After a glass or two of wine as the darkness thickened, he stretched out in the teak chaise and read his book of the week until the mosquitoes or sand fleas drove him inside. Then he
read another chapter or two in bed before sleep dragged him off. Ten o'clock, ten-thirty the latest.
What a stick in the mud, Monica said, their first week together.
No, no. You don't get it. His was a life of ritual—a much higher order of things than mere unthinking routine. Thorn claimed he was as flexible as the next guy. It was just that his idea of innovation was trying out a new snapper recipe or some fresh concoction of fur and feathers in one of his flies. There was no good reason to tamper with the big stuff, not if it was working fine already.
Bullshit, she said. You're calcified. You got cobwebs growing all over you. Mushrooms, mold, mildew.
I believe in austerity, simplicity, the unembellished life.
An old fart, Monica said. Dead before your time. Rut, rut, rut.
It was after midnight one night when they rolled up for the first time into that equine position, she astraddle him, smiling, liking it immediately, the view from up there. Arching back, hands behind her, gripping Thorn's ankles, Thorn sliding his own hands beneath his butt, cocking his hips up on his elbows for more thrust. And that first time when they were finished, lying back, chasing their breaths, she said, "See. See what happens when you stay up past midnight."
"If I'd only known sooner."
Now on the wood wall beside the bed the late afternoon sun had printed the silhouettes of palm fronds, and as Thorn watched them, a sudden breeze broke the shadows apart and sent the fragments skittering across the wall like a flock of nervous angels.
Monica moved above him, her eyes open, staring up at the rafters, riding with him and apart from him. Thorn more conscious of it all than usual, seeing her, watching her move, feeling the raspy slippage of their joined parts, Monica rocking one way, he rocking the other, pushing himself up, bowing his aching spine, as a thick clot of heat in his chest radiated outward. She reached out her left hand and Thorn laced his fingers through hers. Holding on, holding on.
Until the moment came when she began to fade away above him, her face softening, losing its angular grace, its sharp-edged polish, becoming a blurred generic face, a loose look, as the first spasm of pleasure shook her, and she came down hard against his thighs, lunged back up immediately and then slammed back down as if they were riding together through a tumultuous sea. Her voice rose in its familiar spiral of exhilaration, then she lurched back, bearing down against his groin, staying there, grinding with the smallest movements until Thorn reached the same airless place where she was.
Afterward, gasping and sweaty, they eased back down to the mattress, set their curves against each other and fell asleep with the music still playing.
CHAPTER 9
It was dark when Thorn woke. Monica snuffled beside him, her elegant version of a snore. The music was played out, and in the stillness beyond the bedroom door Thorn heard Rover's low and insistent growl.
He rose quickly, stepped into his canvas shorts, and edged into the living room. Moonlight was swimming through the open porch door. Enough light for Thorn to see the dog wasn't curled up in his usual spot below the west window. Probably he'd cornered a toad on the stairs outside, or perhaps had spied one of the possums that lived in the woods next door tightroping through the canopy of vines and limbs.
Then he heard the dog again, a different noise, one Thorn didn't recognize. Part snarl, part yelp. His back went prickly. Some scent in the air seemed off. He considered taking out the Colt .38 he kept in his fly-tying desk, but it seemed like overkill for an encounter with possums. And he had a quick flash of Monica standing behind him asking him quietly why he was aiming a pistol at a frog.
Rover was not on the upstairs porch and Thorn moved out to the railing, scanned the yard below. The seedpods on the poinciana were rattling in the uneasy night air. Out by the dock the Chris-Craft and the skiff gleamed brightly, as if they'd absorbed all the available light. He was about to go back inside, crawl into that warm pocket beside Monica, when he heard Rover whimper from below the house.
He was down the stairs in seconds, across a patch of grass, taking a couple of sandspurs in his naked sole. Monica's Impala was parked in the dark shadows of the stilthouse. His VW was nearby in its usual spot below the tamarind tree. He stood below the porch and peered into the dark.
"Rover?"
The dog whined again, somewhere off to his right behind one of the ancient telephone poles that supported the house. Thorn breathed in the creosote and the foul decay of shrimp left in the bottom of Monica's bait bucket. Sliding between the Impala and a heap of outboard parts, he followed Rover's moan to the rear bumper of the Chevrolet.
The dog was lying on his side in the sand. When he saw Thorn he struggled to haul himself upright, but he couldn't seem to get his rear legs under him. Thorn stooped over the dog. And Rover lifted his head and looked past Thorn, wrinkled his muzzle and growled. Thorn straightened and swung around in time to glimpse the shadow man, his arm a blur. In his hand a chunk of stone.
***
The night was even quieter when Thorn came back to consciousness. No breeze or crickets. No distant hum of traffic. He was lying on his back, pressed flat to the sand, while the neat parallel lines of the floorboards and planking above him were blurred. Beside him Rover was lying on his side. He panted quietly and stared out at the bay with a desolate look.
Thorn concentrated on breathing, a sip at a time. A spoonful of oxygen, then another. His eyeballs had grown a size too large for his sockets. A lump on the back of his head throbbed. He didn't need to touch it to know it was the size and hardness of a Key lime.
Somewhere through the dizzy haze he heard Monica calling out his name—her voice full of the bluesy roughness of sleep. Rover tipped his head and peered up at her bare feet through the planks of the porch. Twenty feet away the tall grass rustled as if Thorn's attacker was still out there, deciding between fight and flight.
Thorn dragged in a breath and tried to yell a warning to her, but it came out as a useless croak. As he watched her feet pad slowly down the stairs, he struggled to lever himself up to a sitting position. But something like a cramp froze him where he lay. He sucked down a breath, cocked his elbows under him, readied himself, then heaved a second time. And nearly fainted from the bolt of pain.
A rush of air filled his throat and Thorn flattened himself carefully in the sand. He had known pain. The list of his injuries was long. But this was different. This pain was out there on the distant edges of endurance.
He held himself as still as possible for a moment, then very carefully he tried to move his legs. And that was when he knew with excruciating certainty that things had altered as irrevocably as if he'd staggered into the middle of US 1 and been broadsided by a truck full of bricks.
Some wrenching of the delicate alignment in his vertebrae had occurred, some invisible boundary had been breached, and now all his body's resilience, tested by years of high school sports, a handful of unavoidable fistfights, and a thousand jolts across choppy seas, all that limberness and flexibility and bounce, was gone, and the neurons that had been flowing in orderly formation for decades, running their messages neatly up and down the staircase of his spine, now were screaming in helter-skelter turmoil.
Thorn could not move his legs. He had no sensation from his waist down. And his spinal cord was hot and wet and very wrong.
***
Strapped tight to the stretcher, Thorn stared up at that Yankee's framed twenty-dollar bill. The two guys from the volunteer ambulance crew were joking around outside in the gravel lot while Monica spoke to Dr. Wilson, not making much sense as far as Thorn could tell. Going into the whole episode in what seemed like unnecessary detail, describing where she found him, how she tried to help him sit up, his howl. The bloody limestone rock beneath his spine. She had the rock out in her car in case Dr. Wilson wanted to see it.
Wilson waited till she'd had her say, then nodded soberly and stooped over the stretcher. He was wearing blue pajama tops and a pair of baggy gray jeans. His dense white hair badly rum
pled.
Behind a penlight he peered into Thorn's eyes.
"Well, you certainly took a hit," he said. "Hammer, gun butt. We'll have to x-ray that damn skull of yours again, add to my collection."
Wilson flicked the light off.
"And you've got no feeling in your legs?"
Thorn told him no, none at all. He tried to stretch his back, twist against the gurney's restraints in a grim effort to unkink whatever it was that was crimping his nerves. Only an hour or two earlier he and Monica had been afloat in the thin atmosphere of sensuality. Part of him had not made the transition to this cold fluorescent room. It seemed like some nightmarish high school play, Act Two jarringly unrelated to Act One. And Thorn had staggered out into the bright footlights without a script or a moment's rehearsal. Everyone playing their parts around him with dramatic flourish, but Thorn without a goddamn idea what the story line was.
"How's Rover?"
Monica said Rover was fine. Whoever clubbed Thorn must have kicked the dog in the ribs, stunned him. By the time the ambulance came, Rover was walking around, wagging his tail.
"Good," Thorn said. "That's good. But you need to watch him, Monica. There could be internal injuries. Check his poop for blood."
"I'll take care of the dog, Thorn. Don't worry about the goddamn dog."
Dr. Wilson rolled the gurney into the narrow hallway. Monica marched alongside, her hand on Thorn's shoulder as they entered one of the small examining rooms. After Wilson cleaned and stitched the wound at the base of his spine, he stepped out of Thorn's line of sight, opened a drawer, and pawed through what sounded like a tangle of surgical hardware. A moment or two later he was back huddling over Thorn's bare feet.
"How about this? Feel anything?"
Monica flinched and turned away.
"No," Thorn said. "Nothing."
Red Sky At Night (Thorn Series Book 6) Page 8
